11/10/2015

Reel Asian Review: 'Port of Call'

Canadian audiences should prepare to squirm and shudder as
the grisly crime of Port of Call
recalls the grotesque deeds of Montreal murderer Luka Magnotta. Nothing quite
tops the stomach-churning depravity of the headline-making cannibalism that
went online, but as far as real world dramas go, the Hong Kong crime drama Port of Call offers enough ghastly stuff
to make the squeamish hurl. Viewers with a strong sense that humans are
innately good might blow chunks too, since the murder case based on true events
drives some troubling questions about the nature of humankind. Has the ship of
human decency left the port?

The bleakness of Port
of Call is entirely the point, though, as Detective Chong (Aaron Kwok)
finds himself troubled by a brutal murder case in which a man in his twenties
takes the life of a teenage prostitute and then butchers her into bits and
disperses her remains to and fro. The deed is absolutely sick, but what revolts
Chong more is a motive behind it. The killer, Ting (Michael Ning), simply says
that the girl, Jaimei (Jessie Li), spoke four words before he killed her: “I
want to die.” Whatever possesses someone to commit such a heinous deed, and
whatever possesses someone to seek a death sentence, are two enormously weighty
questions for anyone person to bear, let alone at the same time.

This film by Philip Yung, which serves as the Centrepiece
for Toronto’s Reel Asian Film Festival and carries a boatload of nominations at
the Golden
Horse Awards (like the Oscars of Chinese-language films), gives ample
dramatic weight to everyone who intersects with the case. Be it Chong, Ting,
Jaimei or, most effectively, Jaimei’s mother (Elaine Jin), Port of Call offers a myriad of fragments that come together like a
ruptured puzzle-mosaic. It’s not a complete picture, but as Chong’s exhausting
philosophical quagmire reveals, one can never truly make sense of a case like
this one.

The film shifts perspectives as title cards break the film
into chapters and shift chronology as Port
of Call jumps back and forth in time. Yung turns the stories back on one
another as the segments feature an element of storytelling as characters give
their accounts on Jaimei’s behaviour before her death. The scenes with Jin as
Jaimei’s mother are the most compelling as she reels from the inconsolable loss
of her daughter. The most brutal element of Port
of Call is not the violence, but the mother’s grief, which cuts deep like a
nice thanks to Jin’s excellent performance.

As the killer, Ning is eerily subdued and rational. Like
Hannibal Lecter with an inferior intelligence, the killer’s docility is
unnerving. When he finally gives his full testimony on how he butchered and
dismembered Jaimei and disposed of her body, his even-keeled account eerily
lacks both empathy and evil. It’s impossible to understand these actions.

Yung overdoes the violence and gore a bit too much during
the climactic testimony as the film flashes back to the murder and shows Ting
chopping Jaimei into bits, hacking her bones, and bathing his apartment in
blood as if it’s a killing room floor. The sequence is relentlessly and
mercilessly graphic—understandably so given the nature of the case—but it seems
gratuitous when juxtaposed with Jin’s wrenching turn as the mother listens to
details of her daughter’s dismemberment.

Jaimei gets her moments later in the film once people have
spoken and speculated about her disappearance. Played by a charming Jessica Li,
Jaimei has a mix of innocence and desperate escapism. She tries her hand at
modelling, but it only leads to prostitution. The film ends by emphasizing
Jaimei’s life and optimism, not her death and the sadness that invited it. Yung
lets the audience appreciate what they’ve lost in the brutal stories beforehand
by returning the story to an image of Jaimei’s family before violence tore them
apart. The move anticipates future losses.

Port of Call is a
dark tale and Yung works with master cinematographer Christopher Doyle to
create a world that is bleak and gritty. Doyle’s stylish cinematography is
ominous and deadly; moreover, it’s disarmingly detached as the camera often
looks at character askance rather than confront them head-on. The visuals are
another angle in a film with so many perspectives. These competing perspectives
build a singular vision: one doesn’t really know someone until it’s too late.